Dr. Marianela Rivera and Kassie Infante, MEd, co-founders of HomePlace Collective, are Lawrence MA-based scholar-activists, community organizers, and former elected school committee members. They both believe in the power of activism as a tool for social change and a mindset for developing hope. HomePlace Collective is a consultancy group that helps schools and youth-serving nonprofits drive social change by building transformational civic skills and literacy through professional development training for adults.

Dr. Rivera is a physical therapist and has focused the majority of her career on serving students receiving special education services. Her experiences while working for Lawrence Public Schools revealed systemic issues impacting her students and their families, which motivated her to run and win a last-minute write-in campaign for the Lawrence School Committee in 2015. Dr. Rivera’s efforts helped organize parents, teachers, students, activists, and concerned citizens to propel public education forward with the Fund Our Future campaign that led to the passing of the Student Opportunity Act. Dr. Rivera was one of the first Table Coordinators of the Greater Lawrence Education Justice Alliance, a role that was taken over by Kassie Infante in 2020. Ms. Infante earned her B.S from the University of North Carolina Wilmington and has extensive experience working in the non-educational development/philanthropy and political advocacy field. Her experience working in private schools, reconciled with her educational upbringing in public schools and the realization of deep disparities, led her to pursue a career advocating for equity and justice in public education. While serving on the Lawrence School Committee in 2020, Ms. Infante attended the Harvard Graduate School of Education and earned a Masters's in Education. Her studies and interest lie in advancing progressive education policy, community organizing, and critical participatory action research as methods to disrupt and dismantle systemic racism.